CANNIBAL COBRAS. 



179 



attacks and overcomes the cells of certain nerve centres in the 

 brain, causing rapid paralysis and death. True, the Mungoose, 

 Muishond, and Meercat attack him at times, and succeed in over- 

 coming and devouring liim. He is never afraid of them. With 

 a third of the anterior part of his body erect, he boldly and 

 defiantly faces them and fights on till death overtakes him. 



When on the prowl for provender, a hungry Cobra will attack 

 and devour any snake he may meet. So bold, fierce and strong 

 is he, that he is able to overcome and swallow a full-grown Puff 

 Adder, as seen in the illustration. Lying still as if dead, he keeps 

 a sharp watch with his shiny brown eyes upon the beaten track 

 of a field rat or Vley Otomys. The rat, all unconscious of 

 danger, trots along his usual road on his quest for food, when, 

 without a second's warning, he receives a blow on the back. 

 Instantly a stinging pain shoots through his network of nerves ; 

 he cries out, attempts to escape, but a deadly numbness grips 

 him, and he is dead. 



The bare-legged Kafir, wending his way along one of those 

 well-known, single-file, native foot tracks across the bush-veld, 

 his mind maybe full of the prospective dehghts of a beer drink 

 and feast of meat at a neighbouring kraal where a wedding is in 

 progress, feels a prick upon his calf, followed instantly by a sharp 

 burning pain. With a hoarse yell he leaps into the air, glances 

 back, sees a Cobra in menacing attitude reared in the grass 

 adjacent to the path. A benumbing sense of terror seizes the 

 man. He staggers off to the nearest kraal, and collapses in a 

 more or less paralysed condition. If the Cobra has succeeded 

 in delivering a full bite, then there is no hope for him. He is 

 doomed. If not, and if liis constitution is able to put up a 

 successful fight against the paralysing power of the venom, he 

 eventually recovers, and ever afterwards extols the virtues of 

 some " cure " wliich the hastily summoned native medicine-man 

 has given him to swallow, or applied to the bitten part. 



When spring is advancing into summer, the Cobra joins his 

 mate. The male snakes seek out the females only at the breed- 

 ing season, which is during the advanced spring and summer. 

 The sexes do not remain together and form a lasting union, as 

 do many species of birds and mammals. Their instincts are of 



* The nerve centres which control the breathing are paralysed — also 

 the end plates of the Phrenic nerves of the diaphragm. 



